CURRENT WORK

Our line of jackets combines the various dye, discharge, and sewing techniques we've developed over the years with our recent explorations in digital printing. These garments often are enhanced with treasures from our archive of silk fabrics, adding complexity and surprise.

 

PROCESS:  DIGITAL

Our digital patterns are developed and abstracted from Hulda's original photographs. We do the whole process ourselves, from developing the digital design through printing on silk, finishing and final garment assembly.

 

PROCESS:  DYEING and TUCKING

Hulda begins by hand-dyeing different types of silk fabric with fiber reactive dyes, in a resist process which can yield several shades and even different hues from a single immersion in the dye bath. Some fabrics are re-manipulated and re-dyed several times.

 

She then begins an individual garment by choosing colors intuitively, holding silk fabrics together to see which combinations excite her eye. She especially likes the complexity resulting from unpredictable effects in dyeing, and unique pieces of fabric sometimes are set aside for one-of-a-kind work.

 

The different silk fabrics are cut, often into strips for our tucked garments, juxtaposed for a rich and subtle surface, and pieced. Freehand tucking is laid over the pieced fabric to visually blend areas and create a relief surface with an organic, rippling texture and a sense of movement.

 

Finally, the garment is cut out and assembled.

 

SOURCE

Hulda began weaving in Virginia in 1973 and absorbed knowledge and attitudes from the strong craft tradition of the Southern Appalachians. Now she works in eastern Washington State, drawing many ideas from the great natural beauty of the American West. Many of her designs and techniques are abstracted from landscape, and from natural textures such as bark and stone. She likes to set designs at an angle on the garment, interrupted at seam lines like fault lines in the earth. The digital work has sharpened her eye for pattern, especially its eccentricities, on scales from macro to aerial.

 

In all cases our concern is to create garments which above all are wearable - comfortable, flattering and giving their owner pleasure for a long time.

 

SELECTED AWARDS and PUBLICATIONS

Award of Excellence (Blue Ribbon), Smithsonian Craft Show

Niche Award Winner (2), Finalist (3)

Commission for silk coat, Folklore Museum, Kwangju, South Korea

Ornament Magazine, feature article

Fiberarts Book of Wearable Art

Niche Magazine article

Surface Design Journal article

ACC Voice newsletter article

Illustrations:  Ornament (several), Crafts Report

 

BIO

HULDA

    Oberlin College B.A.

    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill M.A.T.

    Penland School of Crafts

    Juror, American Craft Council shows (3)

    Arrowmont School of Crafts, faculty 1994

    Little Spokane River Artist Studio Tour, management team and host artist 2008-13

    Inland Crafts (Spokane, WA), founding member, juror, management team, 16 years

    Juror and consultant, regional craft shows, VA and WA

    Teacher of weaving and of junior high school art

    Peace Corps Volunteer, Brazil

 

KEN

    Duke University B.A.

    Duke University School of Law J.D.

    Gonzaga University M.S.T.

    Attorney, private practice and Legal Aid Society

    Peace Corps Volunteer, Brazil

 

 

                                                                                            Copyright @ 2002-2023 Hulda Bridgeman Design. All Rights Reserved.